Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.– Carl Bard

If only — If only.  How the “if onlies” plague us! “If I had only kept up that healthy eating and exercise plan I started five years ago I would look terrific now.”

“If only I had been smarter and used more self control when I was younger, I wouldn’t be carrying around all this extra blubber.”

If we could turn back time, we would certainly fix those mistakes that we are forced to wear now.

We can’t change the past — but we don’t have to suffer with the “if onlys” either.  We can’t have a new beginning, but we can have a new ending.  If we start now doing what we wish we had done, we will find ourselves on a different road.   And that road ends in a different place than the the place we’re headed now.

As long as you are alive and breathing, you can change things and have a different outcome.  That applies not only to weight loss and fitness, but to the rest of life as well.  Wish you had finished college?  It’s not too late!  I graduated when in my fifties.  Thinking “if only” you had learned an instrument when you were younger you would really enjoy it now?  So take lessons.  Maybe you don’t have time to be a concert pianist, but you can play for your enjoyment and maybe even for the benefit of others.  A friend of mine learned to play the violin when in his seventies and now travels to nursing homes in the area to play concerts for them.

Regretting that you didn’t start serving God earlier in life?  It’s not too late.  Use the life you have left to honor Him.

“If onlys” don’t accomplish anything but making you sad.  Instead, do something positive.  Make a change and have an ending you WON’T feel sad about!

Eating to live and living for Christ,

Susan Jordan Brown